Biz Break: PayPal President David Marcus defects to Facebook

Today: PayPal President David Marcus moves to Facebook to lead mobile messaging efforts, leaving eBay's payments company without a leader.

The Lead: eBay suffers loss of PayPal president to Facebook

eBay lost one of its most important executives to Facebook on Monday, as PayPal President David Marcus departed to lead the social network's burgeoning messaging unit.

"I realized that my role was becoming a real management one, vs. my passion of building products that hopefully matter to a lot of people," Marcus wrote in a LinkedIn blog post on his departure. "So, after much deliberation, I decided now is the right time for me to move on to something that is closer to what I love to do every day."

Courtesy Facebook -- David Marcus, formerly president of ebay's PayPal, has left to company to join Facebook, where he will lead the social networkâÄÙs burgeoning messaging unit.

Marcus became part of PayPal when eBay acquired his mobile-payments startup Zong in 2011, and put him in charge of the lucrative payments business when Scott Thompson stepped down to become CEO of Yahoo. Now he will work on Facebook's efforts to be a leader in mobile messaging, a big focus for the company after its $16 billion acquisition of Mountain View mobile-messaging firm WhatsApp and introduction of the stand-alone Facebook Messenger. While Marcus will not be in charge of WhatsApp, Facebook obviously has grander ambitions in the sector, as evidenced by the accidental release of a Snapchat-like app called SlingShot on Monday.

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"We're excited by the potential to continue developing great new messaging experiences that better serve the Facebook community and reach even more people, and David will be leading these efforts," a Facebook blog post on the hire read.

"At first, I didn't know whether another big company gig was a good thing for me, but (Facebook CEO) Mark (Zuckerberg)'s enthusiasm, and the unparalleled reach and consumer engagement of the Facebook platform ultimately won me over," Marcus wrote.

eBay CEO John Donahoe said PayPal employees would answer to him until a replacement is named.

"We wish David well and thank him for his leadership and commitment to PayPal," Donahoe wrote in a blog post disclosing the move Monday. "As the head of PayPal for the past two years, David reinvigorated product design to deliver compelling consumer experiences and energized the team to make a great business better." =

Marcus's departure creates a void at PayPal, which lost its director of strategy just more than a month ago, when Rakesh "Rocky" Agrawal left the company and subsequently went on a days-long Twitter rant that targeted executives at the company. While Agrawal had kind words for Marcus, he wrote a blog post attacking his former subordinate, writing, "Since his tasteless tweets first became public, Rocky has posted positive remarks about myself and other PayPal leaders. Thanks but no thanks, Rocky."

"Did David Marcus also realize that PayPal is headed nowhere? Didn't like being forced to libel me? Fun times," Agrawal tweeted after the news became public Monday.

San Jose-based eBay is the seventh largest Silicon Valley technology company, largely because of PayPal, which it acquired for $1.5 billion in 2002. PayPal provided more than $6.6 billion in revenues for eBay in its 2013 fiscal year, a substantial chunk of its $16 billion total, and is growing faster than the core e-commerce business.

eBay shares fell 0.2 percent to $49.58 Monday, then fell again to less than $49 in after-hours trading following the disclosure of Marcus's departure. Facebook gained 0.6 percent to $62.88, then moved higher than $63 in late action.

SV150 market report: Apple gains after 7-for-1 stock split

Wall Street gained Monday, pushing the Standard & Poor's 500 to another record close as Apple executed its planned stock split, chopping the company's per-share price to less than $100 as stockholders received seven shares for every one they previously owned.

Apple jumped to its highest closing price since 2002 on a split-adjusted basis Monday, adding 1.6 percent to $93.70 after closing at $645.57 Friday. The company has roared back from a correction that took it to less than $400 at times since it hit all-time highs in fall 2012 of more than $700; adjusted for the split, Apple's new record high is $100.72. The Cupertino tech giant continues to look for a new executive to lead its public relations department after the departure of Katie Cotton, and Apple Insider reported Monday that CEO Tim Cook is heavily involved in the search for possible external candidates.

Netflix fell 1.6 percent to $423.09 after announcing that it would stop blaming Internet service providers for certain streaming slowdowns next month, a decision that follows public arguments about the issue between the Los Gatos company and Verizon Communications last week; Netflix shareholders voted against splitting the roles of chairman and CEO, both positions currently held by Reed Hastings. Gilead declined 4.1 percent to $79 as rival Merck paid nearly $4 billion to acquire a company that could help it challenge Foster City-based Gilead's blockbuster new hepatitis C drug. Hewlett-Packard advanced 0.2 percent to $33.74 while announcing a challenge to IBM's supercomputing prowess with new data center offerings under the Apollo brand. Tesla Motors fell 1.4 percent to $205.31 after offering to open up its Supercharger technology to other electric car companies while CEO Elon Musk discussed the possibility of flying cars.